Ruth, Book of
Ruth, Book of
One of the proto-canonical writings of the Old Testament, containing a beautifully written story of a family of Bethlehem in the time of the Judges. Elimelech, under the pressure of famine, left Bethlehem with his wife Noemi and his two sons, to settle in the land of Moab. The sons there married Moabite women, but died without children. After the death of her husband and her sons, Noemi returned to Bethlehem accompanied by Ruth, one of her daughters-in-law, whose filial devotion is expressed in most touching terms (Ruth 1:16). At Bethlehem Ruth married Booz, a relative of Elimelech. The marriage was not strictly a levirate marriage, such as is legislated about in Deuteronomy 25. Booz and Ruth were ancestors of David (Matthew 1), of whom a genealogy is given at the end of the book. The purpose of the book was doubtless to preserve an edifying story relating to the origins of the great king, David, not to recommend levirate marriage nor to combat the rigor of Esdras and Nehemias in regard to marriage with foreigners. The example of filial piety and its reward is particularly striking. As regards the date of composition, the first verse makes it evident that it was written after the times of the Judges; and the genealogy comes down to the time of David. Father Paul Jouon, S.J., judges, chiefly from the language of the book, that it dates from after the Exile.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Ruth, Book of
One of the proto-canonical writings of the Old Testament, which derives its name from the heroine of its exquisitely beautiful story.
I. CONTENTS
The incidents related in the first part of the Book of Ruth (i-iv, 17) are briefly as follows. In the time of the judges, a famine arose in the land of Israel, in consequence of which Elimelech with Noemi and their two sons emigrated from Bethlehem of Juda to the land of Moab. After Elimelech’s death Mahalon and Chelion, his two sons, married Moabite wives, and not long after died without children. Noemi, deprived now of her husband and children, left Moab for Bethlehem. On her journey thither she dissuaded her daughters-in-law from going with her. One of them, however, named Ruth, accompanied Noemi to Bethlehem. The barley harvest had just begun and Ruth, to relieve Noemi’s and her own poverty, went to glean in the field of Booz, a rich man of the place. She met with the greatest kindness, and following Noemi’s advice, she made known to Booz, as the near kinsman of Elimelech, her claim to marriage. After a nearer kinsman had solemnly renounced his prior right, Booz married Ruth who bore him Obed, the grandfather of David. The second part of the book (iv, 18-22) consists in a brief genealogy which connects the line of David through Booz with Phares, one of the sons of Juda.
II. PLACE IN THE CANON
In the series of the sacred writings of the Old Testament, the short Book of Ruth occupies two different principal places. The Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the English Versions give it immediately after the Book of Judges. The Hebrew Bible, on the contrary, reckons it among the Hagiographa or third chief part of the Old Testament. Of these two places, the latter is most likely the original one. It is attested to by all the data of Jewish tradition, namely, the oldest enumeration of the Hagiographa in the Talmudic treatise “Baba Bathra”, all the Hebrew MSS. whether Spanish or German, the printed editions of the Hebrew Bible, and the testimony of St. Jerome in his Preface to the Book of Daniel, according to which eleven books are included by the Hebrews in the Hagiographa. The presence of the Book of Ruth after that of Judges in the Septuagint, whence it passed into the Vulgate and the English Versions, is easily explained by the systematic arrangement of the historical books of the Old Testament in that ancient Greek Version. As the episode of Ruth is connected with the period of the judges by its opening words “in the days. . .when the judges ruled”, its narrative was made to follow the Book of Judges as a sort of complement to it. The same place assigned to it in the lists of St. Melito, Origen, St. Jerome (Prol. Galeatus), is traceable to the arrangement of the inspired writings of the Old Testament in the Septuagint, inasmuch as these lists bespeak in various ways the influence of the nomenclature and grouping of the sacred books in that Version, and consequently should not be regarded as conforming strictly to the arrangement of those books in the Hebrew Canon. It has indeed been asserted that the Book of Ruth is really a third appendix to the Book of Judges and was, therefore, originally placed in immediate connection with the two narratives which are even now appended to this latter book (Judges 17-18; 19-21); but this view is not probable owing to the differences between these two works with respect to style, tone, subject, etc.
III. PURPOSE
As the precise object of the Book of Ruth is not expressly given either in the book itself or in authentic tradition, scholars are greatly at variance concerning it. According to many, who lay special stress on the genealogy of David in the second part of the book, the chief aim of the author is to throw light upon the origin of David, the great King of Israel and royal ancestor of the Messias. Had this, however, been the main purpose of the writer, it seems that he should have given it greater prominence in his work. Besides, the genealogy at the close of the book is but loosely connected with the preceding contents, so it is not improbably an appendix added to that book by a later hand. According to others, the principal aim of the author was to narrate how, in opposition to Deut., xxiii, 3, which forbids the reception of Moabites into Yahweh’s assembly, the Moabitess Ruth was incorporated with Yahweh’s people, and eventually became the ancestress of the founder of the Hebrew monarchy. But this second opinion is hardly more probable than the foregoing. Had the Book of Ruth been written in such full and distinct view of the Deuteronomic prohibition as is affirmed by the second opinion, it is most likely that its author would have placed a direct reference to that legislative enactment on Noemi’s lips when she endeavoured to dissuade her daughters-in-law from accompanying her to Juda, or particularly when she received from Ruth the protestation that henceforth Noemi’s God would be her God. Several recent scholars have regarded this short book as a kind of protest against Nehemias’s and Esdras’s efforts to suppress intermarriage with women of foreign birth. But this is plainly an inference not from the contents of the book, but from an assumed late date for its composition, an inference therefore no less uncertain than that date itself. Others finally, and indeed with greater probability, have maintained that the author’s chief purpose was to tell an edifying story as an example to his own age and an interesting sketch of the past, effecting this by recording the exemplary conduct of his various personages who act as simple, kindly, God-fearing people ought to act in Israel.
IV. HISTORICAL CHARACTER
The charming Book of Ruth is no mere “idyll” or “poetical fiction”. It is plain that the Jews of old regarded its contents as historical, since they included its narrative in the Septuagint within the prophetic histories (Josue- Kings). The fact that Josephus in framing his account of the Jewish Antiquities utilizes the data of the Book of Ruth in exactly the same manner as he does those of the historical books of the Old Testament shows that this inspired writing was then considered as no mere fiction. Again, the mention by St. Matthew of several personages of the episode of Ruth (Booz, Ruth, Obed), among the actual ancestors of Christ (Matthew 1:5), points in the same direction. Intrinsic data agree with these testimonies of ancient tradition. The book records the intermarriage of an Israelite with a Moabitess, which shows that its narrative does not belong to the region of the poetical. The historical character of the work is also confirmed by the friendly intercourse between David and the King of Moab which is described in I Kings, xxii, 3, 4; by the writer’s distinct reference to a Jewish custom as obsolete (Ruth 4:7), etc.
In view of this concordant, extrinsic and intrinsic, evidence, little importance is attached by scholars generally to the grounds which certain critics have put forth to disprove the historical character of the Book of Ruth. It is rightly felt, for instance, that the symbolical meaning of the names of several persons in the narrative (Noemi, Mahalon, Chelion) is not a conclusive argument that they have been fictitiously accommodated to the characters in the episode, and more than the similar symbolical meaning of the proper names of well known and full historical personages mentioned in Israel’s annals (Saul, David, Samuel, etc.). It is rightly felt likewise that the striking appropriateness of the words put on the lips of certain personages to the general purpose of edification apparent in the Book of Ruth does not necessarily disprove the historical character of the work, since this is also noticeable in other books of Holy Writ which are undoubtedly historical. Finally, it is readily seen that however great the contrast may appear between the general tone of simplicity, repose, purity, etc., of the characters delineated in the episode of Ruth, and the opposite features of the figures which are drawn in the Book of Judges, both writings describe actual events in one and the same period of Jewish history; for all we know, the beautiful scenes of domestic life connected in the Book of Ruth with the period of the judges may have truly occurred during the long intervals of peace which are repeatedly mentioned in the Book of Judges.
V. AUTHOR AND DATE OF COMPOSITION
The Book of Ruth is anonymous, for the name which it bears as its title has never been regarded otherwise than that of the chief actor in the events recorded. In an ancient Beraitha to the Talmudic treatise “Baba Bathra” (Babylonian Talmud, c. i), it is definitely stated that “Samuel wrote his book, Judges, and Ruth”; but this ascription of Ruth to Samuel is groundless and hence almost universally rejected at the present day. The name of the author of the book of Ruth is unknown, and so is also the precise date of its composition. The work, however, was most likely written before the Babylonian exile. On the one hand, there is nothing in its contents that would compel one to bring down its origin to a later date; and, on the other hand, the comparative purity of its style stamps it as a pre-exilic composition. The numerous critics who hold a different view overrate the importance of its isolated Aramaisms which are best accounted for by the use of a spoken patois plainly independent of the actual developments of literary Hebrew. They also make too much of the place occupied by the Book of Ruth among the Hagiographa, for, as can be easily realized, the admission of a writing into this third division of the Hebrew Canon is not necessarily contemporary with its origin. But, while the internal data supplied by the Book of Ruth thus point to its pre-exilic origin, they remain indecisive with regard to the precise date to which its composition should be referred, as clearly appears from the conflicting inferences which have been drawn from them by recent Catholic scholars.
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Commentaries.–Catholic: CLAIR (Paris, 1878); VON HUMMELAUER (Paris, 1888); FILLION (Paris, 1889); VIGOUROUX (Paris, 1901); CRAMPONI. Protestant: WRIGHT (London, 1864); KEIL (Leipzig, 1874): BERTHEAU (Leipzig, 1883); OETTLE (Nordlingen, 1889); BERTHOLET (Freiburg, 1898); NOWACK (Goettingen, 1902).
FRANCIS E. GIGOT Transcribed by Thomas M. Barrett Dedicated to Ruth Peterson
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIIICopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, D.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Ruth, Book Of
This book is inserted in the canon, according to the English arrangement and that of the Sept., between the book of Judges and the books of Samuel, as a sequel to the former and an introduction to the latter. Among the ancient Jews it was added to the book of Judges, because they supposed that the transactions which it relates happened in the time of the judges of Israel (Jdg 1:1). Several of the ancient fathers, moreover, make but one book of Judges and Ruth. In the Hebrew Bible it stands among the Kethubim, or Hagiographa. But the modern Jews commonly place, after the Pentateuch, the five Megilloth (q.v.)
1. The Song of Solomon;
2. Ruth;
3. The Lamentations of Jeremiah;
4. Ecclesiastes;
5. Esther.
Sometimes Ruth is placed the first of these, sometimes the second, and sometimes the fifth.
1. The true date and authorship of the book are alike unknown, though the current of tradition is in favor of Samuel as the writer (Talmud, Baba Bathra, 14, 2). That it was written at a time considerably remote from the events it records would appear from the passage in Rth 4:7, which explains a custom referred to as having been the manner in former time in Israel, concerning redeeming and concerning changing (comp. Deu 25:9). That it was written, also, at least as late as the establishment of David’s house upon the throne appears from the concluding verse, And Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David. The expression, moreover (Deu 1:1), when the judges ruled, marking the period of the occurrence of the events, indicates, no doubt, that in the writer’s days kings had already begun to reign. Add to this what critics have considered as certain Chaldaisms with which the language is interspersed, denoting its composition at a period considerably later than that of the events themselves. Thus Eichhorn finds a Chaldaism or Syriasm in the use of for in though the same form occurs elsewhere. He adverts also to the existence of a superfluous Yod in and (Rth 3:3) and in ; (Rth 3:4). As, however, the language is in other respects, in the main, pure, these few Chaldaisms may have arisen from a slight error of the copyists, and therefore can scarcely be alleged as having any special bearing on the eras of the document. The same remark is to be made of certain idiomatic phrases and forms of expression which occur elsewhere only in the books of Samuel and of Kings, as, The Lord do so to me, and more also (Rth 1:17; comp. 1Sa 3:17; 1Sa 14:44; 1Sa 20:23; 2Sa 3:9; 2Sa 3:35; 2Sa 19:13; 1Ki 2:23; 1Ki 19:2; 1Ki 20:10; 2Ki 6:31); I have discovered to your ear, for I have told you (Rth 4:4; comp. 1Sa 20:2; 2Sa 7:27).
2. The canonical authority of Ruth has never been questioned, a sufficient confirmation of it being found in the fact that Ruth, the Moabitess, comes into the genealogy of the Savior, as distinctly given by the evangelist (Mat 1:6). The principal difficulty in regard to the book arises, however, from this very genealogy, in which it is stated that Boaz, who was the husband of Ruth. and the great-grandfather of David, was the son of Salmon by Rahab. Now, if by Rahab we suppose to be meant, as is usually understood, Rahab the harlot, who protected the spies, it is not easy to conceive that only three persons Boaz, Obed, and Jesse should have intervened between her and David, a period of nearly four hundred years. The solution of Usher is not probable, that the ancestors of David, as persons of pre-eminent piety, were favored with extraordinary longevity. It may be that the sacred writers have mentioned in the genealogy only such names as were distinguished and known among the Jews. But a more reasonable explanation is that some names are omitted, as we know is elsewhere the case in the same genealogy. (See above.)
3. The leading scope of the book has been variously understood by different commentators. Umbreit (Ueber Geist und Zweck des Buches Ruth, in Theol. Stud. und Krit. for 1834, p. 308) thinks it was written with the specific moral design of showing how even a stranger, and that of the hated Moabitish stock, might be sufficiently noble to become the mother of the great king David, because she placed her reliance on the God of Israel. Bertholtt regards the history as a pure fiction, designed to recommend the duty of a man to marry his kinswoman; while Eichhorn conceives that it was composed mainly in honor of the house of David, though it does not conceal the poverty of the family. The more probable design we think to be to preintimate, by the recorded adoption of a Gentile woman into the family from which Christ was to derive his origin, the final reception of the Gentile nations into the true Church, as fellow heirs of the salvation of the Gospel. The moral lessons which it incidentally teaches are of the most interesting and touching character: that private families are as much the objects of divine regard as the houses of princes; that the present life is a life of calamitous changes; that a devout trust in an overruling Providence will never fail of its reward; and that no condition, however adverse or afflicted, is absolutely hopeless, are truths that were never more strikingly illustrated than in the brief and simple narrative before us.
4. The separate commentaries on the entire book are not very numerous. Of the Church fathers we mention the following: Origen, Fragmentum (in Opp. 2, 478 sq.); Theodoret, Qucestiones (in Opp. 1, 1); Isidore, Commentaria (in Opp.); Bede, Qucestiones (in Opp. 8); Raban, Commentaria (in Opp.); also Irimpertus, Expositio (in Pez, Thesaur. 4, 1, 141 sq.). By modern expositors there are the following: Bafiolas, [includ. Song of Solomon etc.] (finished in 1329; pub. by Markaria, Riva di Trento, 1560, 4to; also in Frankfurter’s Rabbin. Bible); Bertinoro, (Cracov. s. a. 4to; also in his works, Ven. 1585); Sal. Isaak, (Salon. 1b51, 4to); Alkabaz, (Const. 1561; Lubl. 1597, 4to); Mercer, Versio Syriaca cum Scholiis (Par. 1564, 4to); Isaak ben-Joseph, (Sabbionetta, 1551, 8vo; Mantua, 1565, 16mo); Strigel, Scholia (Lips. 1571, 1572, 8vo); Feuardent, Commentaria (Par. 1582; Antw. 1585, 4to); Lavater, Homilioe (Heidelb. 1586, 8vo; also in English, Lond. 1601, 8vo); De Celada, Commentarii (Lugd. 1594, 1651, fol.); Cuper, Commentarius [includ. Tobit, etc.] (Mogunt. 1600, 4to); Topsell, Commentarius (Lond. 1601, 8vo); also Lectures (ibid. 1613, 8vo); Alscheich, (Ven. 1601, 4to); Manera, Commentarius (ibid. 1604, 4to); Heidenreich, Expositio [includ. Tobit] (Jen. 1608, 8vo); Serrarius, Explanatio [includ. Judges] (Mogunt. 1609, fol.); Bernard, Commentary (Lond. 1628, 4to); Sanctius, Commentarii [includ. other books] (Lugd. 1628, fol.); Bonfiere, Commentarius [includ. Joshua and Judges] (Par. 1631, 1659, fol.); Crommius, Commentarii [includ. Judges, etc.] (Lovan. 1631, 4to); Drusits, Commentarius (Amst. 1632, 4to); Schleupner, Ezpositio (Norib. 1632, 8vo); D’Acosta, Commentarius (Lugd. 1641, fol.); Fuller, Commentary (Lond. 1654, 1868, 8vo); Osiander, Commentarius (Tb. 1682, fol.); Crucius, Verklaaring (Haarlem, 1691, 4to); Schmid, Adnotationes (Argent. 1696, 4to); Carpzov, Disputationes [to 2, 10] (Lips. 1703, 4to [Rabbinic]); Werner, Interpretatio (Hamb. 1711, 4to); Outhof, Verklaaring (Amst. 1711, 4to); Moldenhauer, Erlauterung [includ. Joshua and Judges] (Quedl. 1774, 4to); MacGowan, Discourse (Lond. 1781, 8vo); Asulat, (Legh. 1782, 4to); Wolfssohn, . (Berl. 1788, 8vo); Lawson, Lectures (Edinb. 1805, 12mo; Phila. 1870, 8vo); Dereser, Erklrung (Fr.- a.-M. 1806, 8vo); Riegler, Anmerk. (Wirzb. 1812, 8vo ); Paur, Bearbeitung (Leips. 1815, 8vo); Macartney, Observations (Lond. 1841, 8vo); Blcher, . (Lemb. 1843, 8vo); Philpot, Lectures (Lond. 1854, 18mo); Tyng, History (N.Y. 1855; Lond. 1856, 8vo); Metzger, Interpretatio (Tb. 1856, 4to); Roordam, Versio Syr.-Hexapl. Greece cum Notis (Havl. 1859 sq., 4to); Wright, Commentary (Lond. 1864, 8vo). SEE OLD TESTAMENT.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Ruth, Book of
This book is of great interest, giving, when Israel was nationally very low, a vivid picture of individual piety, as well as of courtesies in which in those days God-fearing men in various conditions in rustic life were not deficient. Ruth was a Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, one of the sons of Elimelech and Naomi, who because of a famine in Israel had gone to sojourn in Moab. On the death of Elimelech and his sons, Naomi the widow returned to Bethlehem, accompanied by Ruth, who clave to her, declaring that Naomi’s God should be her God, and Naomi’s people should be her people.
In the time of barley harvest Ruth went to glean in the field of Boaz, a near kinsman of Elimelech and a rich man. Boaz observed and was gracious to her. She continued thus during the barley and wheat harvests. On the barley being winnowed, Boaz, after eating and drinking, lay down in a barn; and Ruth, instructed by Naomi, went and lay down at his feet. On his awaking, she declared that he was a near kinsman. He owned to this, but said there was one nearer than himself. On the circumstances being made known to the latter, and on his declining to redeem the inheritance, Boaz redeemed all that had belonged to Elimelech and his two sons, and took Ruth to be his wife. She bare a son named Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David.
Ruth is mentioned in Mat 1:5, and in her and in Rahab we have a Moabitess and a woman of Canaan in the genealogy of Christ. The genealogy reflects no honour on Israel after the flesh.
The Book of Ruth may be taken as having a prophetic force: Naomi may represent Israel separated by death from ‘God my king’ (Elimelech), a widow and desolate among the Gentiles: Ruth, the remnant in which, on the ground of mercy, the nation will bear a son. Christ who as Israel’s kinsman has the right of redemption, will take their cause in hand and bring it to a glorious issue.